Tag Archives: Meditation

Phone Guru! Call from Tibet asking me if I am interested in Tantric White Light

by Renee Lindstrom, GCFP

On a cold night in the early winter months I received a phone call. It was on my house phone that normally I don’t answer when I don’t recognize the number. After saying hello the caller asks, “Do you know who I am?” My first thought was, “really?”  I said, “no!”  He went on to say, ” your number has come to me in meditation a few times so I am calling you.”

He goes on to say, “I am Sun and I am calling from Tibet.  I was in Victoria in the fall at the Empress giving a workshop and then he asks, “Did you come?”

Hearing that my number came to him in meditation was suspicious as I believe spirit doesn’t give out phone numbers.  He went on to ask as though to confirm, “you are an energy worker, are you not?”  This is something I don’t announce loudly in my community.  It this is personal to me and woven in my work and teachings.  It is not a persona.   I have witnessed too many people create a guru self-image or persona they haven’t integrated into their behaviour.  My experience is that too many people have been unable to act in alignment with the self-image they portray.  Rather than be a guru, I am interested in each person finding their own guru qualities within themselves.

I reflected that this person did have a slight accent and the phone line did sound hollow in the background.  Hum, I ask myself, is this a new sort of scam? However I was curious and guarded.  This seems to anger him and he began demonstrating his frustration in how he spoke.  His way of speaking was abusive and his manner was power over. He was trying to put me in a victim position  to form of manipulative connection. I thought wow and wondered how many are falling for this?  Is this the direction scammers are going?

I had questioned the direction I wanted to go in the Heart Centered Coaching I do with regards to sexual issues in the week leading up to this call.  I have been the confident of a range of sexual experiences and actions of others and on occasion I reflect how this is for me.  I happened to be in one of these periods of self-reflection.   Listening to this man proclaiming to be a Tibetan Guru asking me if I wanted the Tantric White Light, I wondered if this by chance or was something else at work here?

I heard instructions that fit with ceremony that I was familiar with and in this context, I realized that who ever was speaking with me could see what I was doing.  I looked outside the windows and no one was around.  I could hear others in the house settle for the night and there wasn’t anyone in the house that I didn’t know. That is when I realized the person on the phone was using remote viewing.  He knew if I was doing the actions he was telling me to do.  He knew what room I was in and that I wasn’t obeying his commands.  At this point I was half in and half out of being committed, and now I wanted to know how far it he would go.  I stayed on the line and half heartily followed along.  Eventually there was silence.

During the ceremonial aspect, his instructions became absurd and, whether this was the form of a Tantric White Light Ceremony or not, I do know that in past Tibetan Buddhist ceremonies transmissions as he was suggesting he was preforming is preceded by meditation and extensive teachings that happen in a dedicated retreat.  At the end of such a retreat one is then given a transmission.  This telephone voice was trying to take me through a transmission ceremony with no connection to who he was or what his teaching were.  What was the commitment and responsibility.  Was he trustworthy?  etc., etc.

All the while my inner observer was alive and partly intrigued and partly in shock. Disbelief is how I would describe it.  My concern of course was that this trending tantric phenomenon was becoming a scam.  This man was not invited by me to enter into my space by phone or remote viewing and certainly he was not invited to be my teacher.

As I sensed my space during this phone encounter and his remote viewing, I experienced that his energetic imprint wasn’t strong enough to engage me on a physical, mental or emotional level.  I was intrigued, not convinced or committed but skeptical. Afterwards I had to laugh as the ridiculousness set in.

I did type Tantric into Google search and saw the number of professed Tantric Practitioners with western names in my area.  I thought about the lineage I studied and how the teachers were born into the cultural source of the teachings  that is a lifelong experience.  It was not a weekend, a week or even two.  It used to be a lifetime commitment.

In conversation with a mentor and friend a few days later, I was given a broader context. I heard and agreed with them that even if this person was a Guru from Tibet, they had a lot to learn about Western Culture and behaviour in relationships.  As far as my phone number was concerned, I heard the perspective that my number was given to him by someone here in the community.  I was told that my energy work is well-known here in the community even if I don’t focus on it in any particular way.

In August, 2020 I received a message that this person who calls himself Sun is still active.  I was given a link to a forum that shares posts of him going back as far as 2004.  The site is called Cult Education and the post heading, Sex Crime Alert: Fake Tantra ‘Master’ in Sedona AZ

What I manifested from this personal experience. real or not, was an answer to my inner questions of working with sexual pain people share with me about in our sessions. Whether it is a session for Functional Integration,  the movement releases held sexual tension, in Heart-Centered Empathy Coaching, or healing Personal Environments, sometimes sexual issues need to be witnessed without judgement.

My commitment may have not been to Sun,  however it is to experience sexual healing in a unique Western Way.  Remember,  I am interested in the person becoming their own Guru, not in being their Guru!


by Renee Lindstrom

Awareness Through Living Mentoring Programs Available:

 1st Level – Getting Started (Introduction & Pattern)
 2nd Level – Getting Intouch (Experiencing & Connection)
 3rd Level – Integration (Embodiment)

 

Follow the journey on TwitterInstagram or Facebook

by Renee Lindstrom, GCFP @ Inside Awareness,  Living in Natures Love Blog
Renee Lindstrom Live
Copyright 2014 – 2020 Renee Lindstrom, GCFP

Recent Comment: Thanks very much for your wonderful classes and the way you teach us. I really appreciate that you have given the class a bit of extra time at the end to allow everyone to have their turn. I look forward to truly learning this technique of communicating and experiencing richer relations with people. R

Starting a Meditation Practice

A meditation practice will help you to focus your mind, open your heart and find insight.  I can personally recommend Shambhala Meditation offered in North America since the early 70’s.  Having discovered this in my *own practice I can attest to the value of exploring this in one’s life and recommend this style of meditation.  It will benefit an awaking communication and movement practice.

Examine for yourself how the tools of mindfulness and awareness can help you learn how to work with emotions when they arise, both on and off the meditation cushion.  Explore the concept of peaceful abiding that is the core of our being with this on-line introduction.  

Sit Like a Buddha Link

Sit Like a Buddha Link

*own practice – Renee Lindstrom, sat on the board of  a community Shambhala Meditation Centre in the mid-nineties,  while exploring a language for connection and movement awareness for inner connectiveness

How can one balance aspects of self?

Medicine wheel2Recently I enjoyed viewing a “Coles Notes” explanation of the a Medicine Wheel from a fellow Canadian in Alberta.  This Elder was connecting with a troubled youth through the act of  walking.  There was not a direct focus on any issues.  I observed through their discussion that the Elder was very aware of this youth and their needs through their behavior and unspoken expression.  Rather than being direct and  telling the youth anything, it was through guidance and modelling. The Elder began sharing the concept of  the Medicine Wheel and encouraged the youth  to walk, enter and stop in the center.  The  explanation of the Medicine Wheel was subtle and included the four directions, north, south, east and west.  There was also mention of the balance of the four aspects of self for connecting to ones center.  

Viewing this was a revelation and it was exciting to recognize the similarities to the core principles in the integrative centering and wellness tools offered in the getting InTouch programs at Inside.  These include levels of experiencing integration from the outside in.  These include

  • guidance versus telling,
  • mentoring versus teaching,
  • modeling versus telling and not walking it oneself in reality,
  • experiencing patterns versus fixing it.  

The wellness tools are for creating an open learning mindfulness versus a closed mind that knows everything.  The difference:

Becoming comfortable within oneself leads to acceptance and expansion beyond experiences into deeper relationships.  

Staying in the discomfort of always knowing the answer, in fear of feeling, leads to a *struggle.  Being right creates disconnection from all things. 

*The struggle is keeping the walls of power up that come from being right.

One way to experience balancing aspects of self with Inside is through sharing a Labyrinth Walk.  If you compare the following labyrinth design with the Medicine Wheel above you will see the similarities.  Listening to the Elder share his Medicine Wheel with the youth I was able to hear very similar guidance of sharing a labyrinth walk with others.  I was thrilled to experience the connectedness between these ancient patterns!

Chartres 11 Circuit Labyrinth

Chartres 11 Circuit Labyrinth

 

Other ways to experience balancing aspects of  self with Inside tools and techniques:

Subtle Inner Connecting

  • Awareness through Movement©
  • Conscious Movement
  • Sharing the Labyrinth (similarities  to a Medicine Wheel)
  • Nature Walking
  • Meditation/Contemplation 

Deepening Inner Connections

  • Guidance with  the Spoken Word
  • Functional Integration©

Read more on Balance:

 

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©by Renee Lindstrom, GCFP, May, 2014
Feldenkrais® Practitioner since 2007, Communication & Empathy Coach since 2004, Art of Placement since 2000

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Empty Mind in Action ~ Growing Relationships

Tibetan Buddhism

Chogum Trungpa Rinpoche, originally from Tibet, taught North Americans  a structure to experience mindfulness in meditation.  A structure to occupy the mind and body with focus of attention in a particular way to encourage the mind to slow down to have freedom from thought driven action.

The structure in meditation is particular.  You enter into a room with reverence, sit on a cushion that has a mat between it and floor.  You have a choice of sitting in two or three positions.  When you sit you notice your thoughts and practice labeling them, “thinking.”  You follow your breath outwards counting for cycles of 10 breathes.  As you sit you notice when your thoughts wander off and then as soon as you notice this you simply bring yourself back to the pattern of breathing and observing your breath.  Your eyes are aimed 6 feet in front of you down towards the floor and an you begin to sense the environment.   Sitting begins at a cycle of 20 minutes, walking mediation for 10 and back to sitting for 20 minutes.  For a retreat the 20 minutes stretches into longer periods of time.  The purpose is to begin to have an experience of empty space between the thoughts.  An experience quite unlike a mind driven experience.

Sharing Awareness through Communication workshops based on world recognized models for communicating and development, a dawning realization is for the need of a similar structure.  Chogyam was sharing that the mind needs attention and a structured system of focusing it to participate, not dominate.  Our series of classes has evolved into realizing this same need for structure with a purpose of giving the mind space between thoughts and allowing it room for participating, not dominating.    This then deepens the quality.  Therefore it isn’t the quantity of thoughts and filling up the silence that matters, it’s the quality that becomes recognizable.  Therefore a growing mindfulness can come from learning while developing a lite quality of  curiosity  in studying one’s own behavior.

A recent comment, “When I hold onto the thoughts in my mind that want to jump out and only share back what I am hearing from my friend, my friend shares more.  I am getting to know more about this person and  I thought I already knew everything about  them.  They are also speaking from a deeper place.”

Learning opportunities to discover for yourself how to improve your relationships with clarity and developing mindfulness, western style, are available.  For more explore the classes listed, inquire about presentations, workshops and coaching.  There are organized group classes, classes designed with your needs in mind, online classes and private sessions for coaching and improving your relationships.

 

The only way to change is action


by Renee Lindstrom

Effective Movement Posture and Awareness with Life  Mentoring Programs Available:←

 1st Phase of Integration – Getting Started (Introduction & Pattern)
 2nd Phase of Integration – Getting Intouch (Experiencing & Connection)
 3rd Phase of Integration – Integration (Embodiment)

Follow the journey on TwitterInstagram or Facebook

by Renee Lindstrom, GCFP @ Inside Awareness,  Living in Natures Love Blog
Renee Lindstrom Live
Copyright 2014 – 2021 Renee Lindstrom, GCFP
Feldenkrais®, Feldenkrais Method®, Awareness Through Movement®, Functional Integration®, are registered service marks of Feldenkrais Guild® of North America. Feldenkrais Method®

Drawing a West Coast Sand Labyrinth

638px-cretan-labyrinth-round.svgby Renee Lindstrom, GCFP @ Inside Awareness, Living in Natures Love Blog & Renee Lindstrom Live

Walking through a sand labyrinth for the first time may bring you an unexpected quality that could increase your experience of joy and renew your romance with  life along our coastlines.

After drawing and creatively decorating a sand labyrinth it will be time to simply enter the walk.  Walking the labyrinth pathways your attention may be drawn inward increasing your focus on what’s in front of you.  This is when you may begin to notice the simple beauties of beach life that sometimes gets lost in the vastness of the bigger view.  For example; a tiny birds foot prints, a shell embedded in the sand and seaweed sitting softly on top.

Shell in sand

Shell in the sand

These bits of life may jump deeper into awareness in this type of meditative walk in a way creating a deeper sense of expanded connection to your senses in some way.

If you are planning a beach event or simply find yourself with time at the beach consider this an opportunity to deepen your connection with our coastal life.

Read more on drawing a sand labyrinth:

Go to events of inquire about Labyrinth Programs


Recommended:


Copyright 2014 – 2019 Renee Lindstrom, GCFP,
Feldenkrais® Practitioner since 2007, Value-Based Communication & Empathy Coach since 2004, Art of Placement  since 2000, Founder of Greater Victoria Peace & Intercultural Celebrations since 2010 & Greater Victoria Labyrinths since 2012, #yyj Peace Week Calendar Founder – 2014 & 2015